Cat Scratch Reader
The Panthers defense hasn’t been amazing, but that was to be expected going into the season.
The Carolina Panthers enter their bye week with a 3-7 record, as the offense has juggled its starting QB position and dealt with a variety of injuries and turnover as the season has progressed. Defensively, things have been much worse in that regard, as they opened the season losing DL Derrick Brown during week 1, and have had many injuries take place along their entire defense. Let’s take a high level overview of the defense overall.
Per TeamRankings.com; the Panthers defense currently ranks dead last in opposing points per game at 31.0, 30th in opposing yards per game at 386.9, 31st at opposing yards per play, and 32nd in third down conversion %. However, they are ranked in the top 10 in FOURTH down conversion %. That’s nice, even if they haven’t had that many total attempts at 4th down. Overall though, these rankings track with what we expected for this defense, as the Panthers weren’t able to add nearly the kind of talent they did on offense and lost a lot of good players via free agency. Still, the defense has had moments throughout the season, but is a bottom of the league unit as things stand. No matter how you feel about Ejiro Evero, he can only do so much with the pieces he was given and continues to operate with.
I don’t think anyone who paid attention to the Panthers off-season expected this front seven to knock their socks off. They lost LB Frankie Luvu via free agency, traded LB Brian Burns to the Giants after not finding a way to come to an extension, and really didn’t have a strong core behind them aside from Derrick Brown and possibly Shy Tuttle depending on how you feel about him. They tried to beef the unit up as best they could by signing DL A’Shawn Robinson, EDGE players Jadeveon Clowney and DJ Wonnum, and finally ILB Josey Jewell. They went through a ton of turnover as far as depth goes, and their pass rush and run defense show the results one would expect with the team they fielded. They are 31st in sacks % per game, 32nd in rush yards per game, and 23rd in rush yards per play, as teams have heavily leaned on the rush against them in order to throw the ball. Teams have only passed the ball 47.75% of the time against them, which is 2nd in the league. The pass rush and front seven isn’t going to get better overnight, though we have seen some flashes of progress. But in the end, this unit is always going to be about making the plays they can and holding on as long as possible. DJ Wonnum provided a spark for the defense last week in his first game back from injury, and A’Shawn Robinson had his best game as a Panther. We’ll see...
